The following grim entry from the burial register, bearing date 2nd February, 1693, illustrates the methods and views of a former age, which seem strangely out of touch with our own: "Samuel Rogers, of Crava, being excommunicate, was laid in the earth in the Church at night."
I find in the registers the records of but few briefs. At Germoe in 1682 five shillings was collected for the "distressed Protestants of France," and in the same year ten shillings for the sufferers in the great fire at the town of Cullompton in Devonshire. At Breage I only find records of briefs in the year 1712: they were for the restoration of Battle Bridge, West Tilbury and St. Clement's Church, presumably of this diocese.
It is to be regretted that the churchwardens' accounts have long since, through damp and neglect, passed beyond the stage when it is possible to examine them. The Parish Councils Act with all its benefits committed a terrible mistake in consigning the ancient records of the Church Vestries, in many cases going back for hundreds of years, to the custody of simple, well-meaning but unlettered men, with no realisation of the value of ancient documents. Too often they have been jumbled into an old wooden box in a damp vestry room, and left to grow green with mould and disintegrate into an evil-smelling paste; at least such is an instance in the writer's experience. In another case, the fountain of village wisdom informed a learned antiquary that he could not be allowed to inspect their documents; whilst in a third case the clerk to a Parish Council parted with an ancient document, that had come down through the generations with the Church Vestry papers, to an old gentleman who was in the habit of shewing it to his friends as a curiosity. On the death of the old gentleman in question a friend of the writer, in the hope that the document might prove of interest, and that he might be able to return it to the vicar of the parish from whence it had been originally taken, endeavoured to purchase it from the heir, when it transpired that the document had been burnt as waste paper.
The following items from the Breage churchwardens' accounts I have been able to cull from a note-book of the Reverend Jocelyn Barnes. Whilst of no paramount importance, they serve as vivid illustrations of the dead-and-gone life of the village.
1774—Mr. John Hood and Company for Oilcloth Umbrella for the Parson at funerals, £1 0s. 6d.
1772—For the charge of prosecuting against the Kitows for the murder of Henry Thomas, junior, as per bill of particulars, £18 4s. 2d.
1797—Feb. 2nd, to a new white sheet for William Fischer to do penance, 6d.; ditto, to the expense of the occasion, one shilling.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] See Jenner's "Handbook of the Cornish Language."
[44] See Bouse's "Collectanea."